Fiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is an important day for many reasons and this motion is certainly one of them. I thank Senator Seery Kearney for tabling this motion. "We cannot always build a future for our youth, but we can always build our youth for the future." These were the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 when he announced the New Deal for the American people coming out of the Great Depression. We are looking at producing a new deal as we emerge from Covid. Those words are equally as important now, particularly around the notion that we need to re-engage with our young people.

There is no doubt but they have been hugely impacted by Covid, not just in education and the possibility to earn money as young people, but in all of their social mores, such as being involved with sport or with other organisations or just hanging out. While we are having the conversation about where we need to go from here, we need to have the energy, imagination, creativity, exuberance and talents that young people have in terms of that conversation about where we are and where we need to go.

I acknowledge that the national framework for children and young people's participation in decision-making was launched in April and that is crucial to the conversation. Like others have mentioned, I was hugely impressed by the level of engagement with young people in the examination years for 2020 and 2021 in terms of their advocacy for themselves and their peers. We can only learn from that. Our national youth organisations need to be supported, as well as those that provide sporting opportunities and the opportunity to participate through arts. CAMHS and all of the different programmes around supporting young people's positive mental health are crucial to the development of our young people.

I want to acknowledge that today is International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia. That is important in terms of young people in that community. We support them.